It is very dangerous, it has a long name, and it has been in Bangladesh a long time.
Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT) was at one time a valuable tool around the world to control pests and diseases for public health and agriculture.
In 1991, Bangladesh banned the chemical because of the dangers it posed. The ban came too late for one large shipment which was intended for use in malaria eradication. It remained in storage for nearly four decades.
Upon arrival in 1985, the DDT was found to be unusable for technical specification reasons. The boxed and bagged substance was piled high in four warehouses in the Medical Sub-Depot of the Directorate General of Health Services, Agrabad. It gradually became largely forgotten about. The packaging degraded over time, spilling much of the toxic contents.
But Bangladesh can now, at last, declare itself free from this toxic legacy which has silently threatened the health of its people and environment. The final shipment of more than 500 metric tons of DDT has left Chittagong, bound for incineration in Europe.
Safe destruction of hazardous waste is complex and costly. The people doing the work must be protected fully and safeguards must be in place to protect the people who live and work nearby, as well as the wider environment.
In 2007, immediate and urgent action was advised to repackage and remove the DDT from its location, and to treat it at a specialist facility. A stumbling block though was that Bangladesh had, and still does not, have such a specialist facility. International disposal is far from simple.
There is a history of toxic waste from industrialized countries being dumped in poor countries. For this reason, the Basel Convention exists which effectively bans the international movement of hazardous waste.
Exceptions can be made if the country that owns the waste does not have the ability to deal with it safely. In this case, another country must agree to receive and treat the waste, and every country that the waste passes through on the way to its final destination must give permission for the waste to transit through its territory.
The project to deal with the DDT waste pile was approved in 2019 with a grant of more than $8 million from the Global Environment Facility (GEF).
Preparations were made to contract a specialist company to repackage and transport the DDT and to decontaminate the site. The DDT would be repacked into new containers and transported by sea to France, passing through the waters of 14 other countries on its way.
In France, the DDT would be transported by road to two different facilities where it would be destroyed.
Then the Covid-19 pandemic struck. Throughout the lockdown in Bangladesh and in Europe, work went on behind the scenes to prepare the equipment needed and to secure agreement from all the transit countries.
Work in the MSD started in March this year. Local staff who repacked the toxic waste worked in difficult conditions wearing full head-to-toe protective equipment.
After so much preparation, organization, and hard work, a total of three DDT shipments eventually left Chittagong, with the last one leaving port on November 28.
This complex operation has been a first for Bangladesh. This was a large amount of DDT in a city centre location, needing to be shipped halfway around the world.
It required the collaboration of several government departments, shipping companies and agents, the navy and port authorities, the police, and the city corporation.
This was the last DDT in Bangladesh and it will never be seen here again. We wish that such actions were not needed, but in reality wherever there is industry, health care, transport, or agriculture, there is hazardous waste.
Every country needs systems to manage these materials safely. Bangladesh is better equipped than ever to protect itself from other forms of hazardous waste and is at last free from its toxic legacy of DDT.
Mark Davis is a pesticides expert and consultant for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) which co-ordinated the DDT removal operation.
